Confronting Police Abuse Requires
Shifting Power From Police Unions
Daily Signal,
by
Rachel Greszler
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
6/9/2020 7:12:30 AM
By and large, police officers are heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the communities in which they live and serve. How then should we react to cases of police misconduct and brutality when they come to light?
Confronting this requires what Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey referred to as “this one, nearly impenetrable barrier, which is the union contract and the way it is set up.”
Derek Chauvin, the now-fired police officer who was arrested and charged in George Floyd’s death, had multiple complaints against him, only one of which resulted in a reprimand.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 6/9/2020 7:35:05 AM (No. 438022)
Organized crime. Always has been-always will be.
3 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 6/9/2020 7:46:41 AM (No. 438038)
"B-b-b-but unions good, no?"
Except when they confound the plans of loonie leftists.
1 person likes this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
udanja99 6/9/2020 7:51:40 AM (No. 438047)
If the demonrats start messing with the police unions, to which politicians will those unions send their collected dues? The demonrats are once again shooting themselves in the foot. Go for it. Maybe the unions will finally see that it is Republicans who actually support the police.
4 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
sw penn 6/9/2020 8:13:49 AM (No. 438090)
In America we have time tested ways of dealing with such issues...
Cities are routinely sued over cases of officer misconduct.
How many of those suits name the police union as co-defendent?
Has this been an over-sight?
Money lost in lawsuits is money not used to buy dempols.
Enough money lost in lawsuits is public employee union busting.
0 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
moebellini3 6/9/2020 8:22:53 AM (No. 438102)
The reason you can't get rid of a bad cop is the same reason you can't get rid of a bad teacher. Unions. You see, the fact is, democrats are responsible for George Floyd's death. With the number of complaints against that cop, he should have been fired years ago. But he wasn't. You see, unions and the democratic party are one and the same. The unions fund the democrats campaign and then the democrats give the unions anything they want. Its basically a circle jerk and the real jerks are the people who vote for these criminals. Got it.
7 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
TJ54 6/9/2020 9:02:21 AM (No. 438151)
I have been saying this for years, Dem controlled unions, make it impossible to get rid of bad teachers and bad cops. Media ignores
3 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
seamusm 6/9/2020 9:29:23 AM (No. 438221)
All civil employee unions including teacher's unions should be abolished. And for the police, the responsibility for investigation and criminal charges should rest in the hands of special prosecutors not their police buddies in the DA's office.
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Skeptical1 6/9/2020 9:45:37 AM (No. 438258)
The flaw in her argument is the assumption that police administrators are trying to do the right thing. No doubt, they often are trying to do the right thing, but we see many instances where they are quite happy to do the politically expedient thing and screw the cops over. When that happens, the police unions are the only institutional support that cops have.
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
HotRod 6/9/2020 9:46:55 AM (No. 438260)
Give police chiefs the power to fire bad apples, without union interference. Of course, allow fired police to appeal, through their union, if they wish. Barring undeniable exculpatory evidence, however, the chief's decision stands!
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 6/9/2020 9:53:42 AM (No. 438268)
Why not try privatizing?
0 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
bpl40 6/9/2020 10:00:54 AM (No. 438277)
Every single social pathology, dysfunctionality in our culture leads unerringly to the same place - Left Liberalism. That this has never been a critical issue separating the two sides in an election is no accident. It has been planned that way right from Kindergarten to the public workplace. THIS barrier must be breached come this November. Otherwise we will be back where we started.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
lakerman1 6/9/2020 10:41:10 AM (No. 438338)
as a retired arbitrator, I feel an obligation to respond.
The U.S. Supreme Court, back aroiund 1960, really extablished the power of arbitration and arbitrators.
Three cases, all issued the same day., are called The Steelworkers Trilogy.
In condensed form, this is what the Court said.
You wanted arbitration, you got it, you are stuck with the results.
If the parties included arbitration in the collective bargaining agreement, they had to arbitrate grievances, and were bound by the results, with these exceptions - if the arbitrator had a concealed interest in the outcome, or a personal relationship with someone involved in the case, or if the arbitrator's decision was so bad, so repugnant, that a judge would have overturned the decision, had it been m,ade by a jury.
In my 31 year career as an arbitrator, I had two cases appealed to the courts, one appeal by management, one by the union. In each case, my award was upheld.
Finally, the arbitrator is a creature of the contract, and is limited by the language of the contract. Blaming the arbitrator for the bad or stupid language of the contract is like blaming Al Roker for rain.
1 person likes this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 6/9/2020 11:34:42 AM (No. 438422)
I call bull. In these cases, often the union is the only help an innocent officer has when a racist mob is after him for something that he didn't do.
Remember Baltimore.
Remember Ferguson.
The media lied. The BLM thugs lied, and burned.
Eventually ALL of the police were found to have done NOTHING wrong.
It will be similar in Minneapolis, I believe.
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
MickTurn 6/9/2020 12:14:13 PM (No. 438508)
IF the Unions didn't cover for Bad Cops it wouldn't be a problem...but they DO and always have!
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Albatross 6/9/2020 2:14:26 PM (No. 438656)
Big upvotes for #8, #12 and #13. The actions of the 4 Minneapolis officers were very different, yet the mayor fired all 4 summarily. Why? Because he knew that it was in his own self-interest, who cared about the facts.
Lane's union-appointed attorney, Earl Grey, pointed out in court yesterday that Lane was the junior officer on the scene, and that several times he suggested to Chauvin, the senior officer there, that Floyd be repositioned, but Chauvin declined. Nevertheless, all 4 are behind bars charged with felonies. By the way, if I was charged with a serious crime, I would want Earl Grey on my side.
As for the union defending "bad cops", the union is there to protect their members. It's up to courts and arbitrators to decide who is a "bad cop". Is there any doubt after the last few years that cops need legal protection?
0 people like this.
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Comments:
Weird fact I never knew: During the recession, instead of giving raises, cities would give unions management rights so the unions became more and more powerful.